We may love God, it is true,
because He is infinitely good to us, but His
goodness is a perfection which we know
through His goodness toward us; we will
still love Him for His perfections. It is
through His mercy and goodness to us that
we come to understand better His infinite
goodness.Charity is the perfection of all
other virtues ;without charity, faith and
hope may be found in the soul, but without
charity they are dead and cannot bring any
one to eternal life.Charity is the life of the
other virtues ; it directs them to their proper
end.Without charity no one is really virtuous
and pleasing to God ;with charity he
becomes a child and intimate friend of God.
Faith is the root and foundation of justification,
but charity is the life which makes it
live ; without charity the root will not bring
forth the fruit of good works, and faith without
works is dead in itself.Charity gives
value and merit to good works ;without charity
we can do good, but nothing that is meritorious
of heaven.
St. Bernard says, "The
soul is the life of the body, through it the
body moves and feels ; charity is the life of
faith because ' faith worketh by charity,' as
we read in the apostle.1 Hence, when charity
grows cold, faith dies, as the body dies
when the soul leaves it."2Charity is the
perfection of faith and hope.By charity we
are united to God ; in the closest friendship
we embrace Him whom we know by faith.
By charity we obtain, even here upon earth,
the possession of that supreme good which
we hope for in heaven. Faith and hope may
remain in one who has lost the sonship of
God, but charity can be possessed only by
the children of God. It is so precious that
its possession marks us out as sons of God
and heirs of heaven."There is nothing
sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing
higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasing,
nothing fuller, nothing better in heaven
or on earth, because love is born in God and
rests in God alone. ... A great cry in the
ears of God is the ardent affection of the soul
which says,thou art my God, my love, my
all, and I am all thine."3
1 Gal. 5. 6.
2 In resurrect, serm. 2.
3 De Im. 3. 5.
Divine charity elevates our nature, and
makes us participate in the divine nature; it
elevates our natural affection, and makes it a
divine affection. As long as we have only
natural love we love ourselves and our
neighbor for our sake, but divine charity
makes us love God for His sake, and ourselves
and others for the sake of God.
Through grace and charity we are united in
a wonderful manner with God ; we live in
Him ; our life in the supernatural order is a
life in God, so that we can say with St. Paul, "I live now, not I : but Christ liveth in me."1
If through grace God becomes our life,
through charity His love becomes our love,
so that we love Him with the love with
which He loves Himself. As God loves
Himself and us on account of Himself, so, if
we have divine charity, shall we love God for
His own sake, and ourselves and others for
the sake of God whose image man is. With
this divine love all other affections must
harmonize ; no other love can interfere. Just
as the light of the sun penetrates the air and
turns all into light, so divine charity must
penetrate our whole being and dominate all
our actions. This is what we should strive
for, that we do everything out of the love of
God; that divine charity be the main-spring
of all our actions.
It is true this perfection
is not reached here upon earth. There are
many things in our lives that are imperfect
and do not spring from the love of God;
there are even things that are sinful and hence
opposed to the love of God.These imperfections
and venial sins, however, should not
keep us from striving for that perfection which
is demanded by reason of divine charity. We
shall possess this perfection in its fulness in
heaven. There all our thoughts and desires
shall be absorbed by the love of God ; here
upon earth we can strive for it and approach
it more and more. By grace we are born
for heaven : heaven is the home of the children
of God.Here we have that divine life only
imperfectly; the perfection is reserved for
heaven, where we "shall see God as He is,"
and be drawn toward Him with an irresistible love,
— a love that shall absorb our whole
being and make us unspeakably happy.
Through the grace of justification God not
only remits all the sins that we have committed
and makes us His children, giving us
at the same time a right to heaven, but He
also infuses into our souls the divine virtues
of faith, hope, and charity.By faith,He
raises our natural power of understanding to
the supernatural order, and makes us know
eternal truths, which we cannot reach by the
natural power of our intellect. He reveals
to us the greatness and majesty of His being ;
by the light of our reason we can, through
the contemplation of the world, come to a
knowledge of the existence of God, but history
shows us how the pagans, who had only
their own reason to guide them, fell into all
sorts of errors concerning God, even in
those matters that can be known by the light
of reason. Besides these truths God has
made known to us the greatness of His
being, — that He is one God in three persons ;
that in His infinite love and mercy He sent
His only Son to become man and redeem us
from sin.These and many other truths
we know by faith, and faith only.
Hope puts before our mind a reward of which no
man could have dreamed, — a reward so great
that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor
hath it come into the heart of man to conceive."
By natural reason we know that our
soul is immortal ; that it cannot die. We
know, too, that God rewards the good and
punishes the wicked ; but how could we expect
that God Himself would be "our reward ex-
ceeding great."This comes to us through the
divine virtue of hope infused into our souls
with sanctifying grace. Our will, instructed
by the light of the intellect, can tend toward
God in love, but that love is only the love of a
slave toward his master, on whom he depends
in his very being. The divine virtue ofcharity makes us love God as our Friend; it unites
us to God as our Father.It is the love of
the children of God, to which natural love
cannot be compared. These divine virtues
are in our soul, together with sanctifying
grace from which they spring ; they are to
make us true sons of our heavenly Father ;
they are to bring us to Him. In heaven,
which shall be our inheritance forever, they
shall be perfected.
Faith shall end in vision ; what we now believe
we shall then see. Hope shall end in possession ;
love shall be perfected and fill our whole being.
In this shall consist our happiness for ages without end,
—the happiness of the sons of God."Omnipotent,
eternal God, give us an increase of
faith, hope, and charity, and that we may
merit what thou hast promised ; make us love
what thou commandest."1
Nothing defiled can enter heaven.Anyone
whose soul has on it the stain of original
sin or of any actual sin, is excluded from the
happiness of heaven.Before such a one can
enter heaven he must be justified.This justification
begins with the actual grace of
God, illumining the understanding and moving
the will.But the grace of God will not
do all. Man, too, must cooperate; he, too,
must do something.With the grace of God
he must believe, hope, begin to love God, and
repent of his sins. Thus prepared he must
receive the sacrament of Baptism or, if he be
already baptized, the sacrament of Penance. By these sacraments he receives sanctifying
grace which justifies him.
By Baptism man is cleansed from original
sin as well as from any other sin that he may
have committed before Baptism. Besides the
remission of sin he also receives the remission
of all punishments due to sin, so that "there
is now no condemnation to them that are
in Christ Jesus,"1 nothing that is
displeasing to God, nothing that would prevent his
entering into the kingdom of heaven immediately,
should he die at that time. This is not all ;
besides the cleansing from sin, Baptism does
also something positive. By Baptism man is
born anew; he is made a child of God,
an heir of heaven, a member of
His holy Church. How is this all brought
about? By sanctifying grace.Through
Baptism the Holy Ghost pours into the soul
sanctifying grace together with the divine
virtues of faith, hope, and charity.Sanctifying
grace works an entire renovation in the
souls of those that are baptized. By it the
sinner becomes just ; his sins are not merely
covered over, but entirely blotted out and
forgiven, so that nothing of the former state
remains that would demand the punishment
of God. Since there is in Baptism a new
birth, and we are born of God, we become
sons of God, and "if sons, heirs also : heirs
indeed of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."2
If any one commits a mortal sin after Baptism,
he loses the grace of God and with
that all supernatural justification ; he ceases
to be an object of pleasure in the sight of
God, and is no longer His child ; he loses his
right to the inheritance of heaven.If he
should die in this state, he would be lost for
ever.To escape so terrible a condition he
must do penance and confess his sins. Through the sacrament of Penance, he
can regain the state of grace lost by sin.
Through the sacrament of Penance he can
once more become a child of God and have
restored to him the right to his inheritance.
To him God will say, This my son was
dead, behold he liveth ; he was lost, and
behold he is found.1
Sanctifying grace is not, like actual grace,
something given only for a short time and
then passing away; no, it remains in the
soul ; it inheres in it ; it is something permanent.
Sanctifying grace puts the soul in a
state of freedom from sin, and gives supernatural
holiness and justice. For this reason
we say of one who has obtained sanctifying
grace, that he is in a state of grace, or
that he has sanctifying grace ; that it dwells
in his soul, or that his soul is adorned
with sanctifying grace.God cannot give us
a greater gift than sanctifying grace. Hence the Apostle, St. Paul, admonishes us to give
thanks."Giving thanks to God the Father,
who hath made us worthy to be partakers of
the lot of the saints in light: who hath delivered
us from the power of darkness, and
hath translated us into the kingdom of the
Son of His love, in whom we have redemption
through His blood, the remission of sins:
who is the image of the invisible God, the
first-born of every creature;"1 that is,
before any creature was made, the Son of God
was. Through the sacraments we receive
the fruits of the Redemption, that is, we
receive the remission of our sins, and of the
punishment due to sin; we are born anew,
and so become like to Jesus, and are made
worthy of the inheritance of the kingdom of
heaven. Grace, as St. Thomas says, is the
beginning of glory just as glory is the completion
of grace. The perfect union of God
with the creature and the happiness of
heaven is a consequence of grace, which will
surely follow, if it is not impeded by mortal
sin. The smallest degree of sanctifying
grace is the beginning of this union with
God. Grace is the pledge of eternal life
and the seed from which it springs. As man
is created to the image and likeness of God,
so by his second birth he is conformed to the
image of His Son and made a child of God.
As long as we possess sanctifying grace we
carry in our hearts a priceless treasure; grace is worth as much as God Himself,
since it is through grace that we come into
the possession of God.Through grace we
are made one spirit with God, as St Paul
says, " He who is joined to the Lord is one
spirit."1 We adhere to God, when we are
united to Him by grace.Sanctifying grace
is that treasure of which the gospel speaks, — the treasure hidden in a field, for which we
give all, that we might acquire the field. It
is the greatest wealth ; we should ever strive
for it because it is a treasure which cannot
be stolen nor destroyed by moths. No matter
how poor a man may be in this world's
goods, if he possess sanctifying grace, he is
immeasurably wealthy ; and if a man possess
all the goods of the world and is without
sanctifying grace, he is poor, indeed, and deserves
our pity. " For what doth it profit a
man, if he gain the whole world and suffer
the loss of his own soul ? "2The greatest
loss that any soul can suffer is the loss
of sanctifying grace, which is the very life
of the soul.
